News

Review: Worth two in the bush

It was, apparently, Charlie Bird’s most daunting mission so far. Reporter by profession and adventurer by self-profession, he presents himself as a rugged outdoorsman; no stranger to hostile territory.

Nevertheless, RTE’s chief news correspondent was clearly paralysed with fear by the expedition before him. Like a climber at the foot of Everest, he could visualise his destination but was unable to work out how to reach it. Try as he might, he just couldn’t make it across the floor of his tent to his sleeping bag.

There were several scenes in Charlie Bird Explores the Amazon (RTE1, Thu) that are destined to become comedy classics in future blooper shows. Yet the most memorably comical moment was undoubtedly the sequence in which the roving newshound became a petrified scaredy-cat; immobilised on hands and knees at the threshold of his tent by the sight of an insect on his bed roll.